Suction caissons: A new offshore foundation concept

Suction caissons have been used increasingly as a new offshore foundation system in the last decade. This paper goes through a number of different practical uses of suction caissons to date, which demonstrate the advantages and benefits of suction caissons and explain the reasons behind their popularity in the offshore industry. Some results from an experimental study aiming to investigate the possibility of installing suction caissons in layered sand-silt soil conditions are also presented. In particular the soil deformation is discussed which, when suction is applied, can be traced using an image-based technique in a half-caisson model test.